Conversation Partner 3

Yesterday I had lunch at Starbucks with June. I got there first, bought lunch, and grabbed a table. As soon as June saw me she wanted to know what kind of sandwich I was eating because she wanted to go get one. I told her that I was about to eat a veggie sandwich. It was so hard to suppress my giggles as she kept saying "wedgie sandwich." She has been here a year and still hadn't heard that there was a shorter way to say vegetable. She was delighted with the news, because she thinks vegetable is a difficult word.

I learned that Koreans like soccer best but that they are also baseball fanatics. She thinks that football is silly, and she said that most Koreans feel the same way. She told me about her weekend hanging out with Japanese IEP friends. She lived in Japan for a short time and learned Japanese but she said they mainly speak in English to each other because she thinks Japanese is so difficult. So take that, whoever thinks that all Asian languages "sound the same!" Her English was a little bit more polished yesterday, and I think the weekend English-speaking helped considerably. She speaks Korean with her daughters at home.

I should probably come clean. I think June might think I am a celebrity. She bought my children's book and constantly refers to my website. She always says, "I know real American author! Cool!" I have to admit, I like being in the same category as my beloved Mark Twain but I feel that's really (really) blowing things out of proportion! Still, we discuss writing a lot since it's a shared interest. Her book hasn't been translated into English or else I would purchase it. She said it's only available in South Korea.

We talked about the Fulbright scholarship, too, since my application was due yesterday. She had heard of Fulbright and seemed astonished that I would even ask if she knew what it was. "Very famous!" she'd replied. She told me that I would be a better European than American. Her reasons? "You eat healthy, you like museums and opera, you like walking places, you take dog all around. You are not very American!" (I should note that, in context, she meant the museums and opera are not common things to like for 21 year-old Americans, not Americans in general.)